Saturation effects pedals articles

Fuzzzzz! This onomatopoeia used to describe the first distorted sounds of an amp is hardly a stranger to any guitar player. The fuzz is obviously a distortion effect, but it's a also a culture in its own right. It actually defines a whole category of rock by itself and symbolizes the desire for emancipation and renewal of an entire generation. Aud…

The overdrive pedal is one of the most timeless and classic effects for electric guitar, and finding the overdrive of your dreams can be a lifelong endeavor. They have become a true cult object and manufacturers have seized the opportunity to expand the offering exponentially throughout the years. Given the saturation of the market, it's not easy …

With over 100 overdrive pedals listed on just one gear-shopping website, how does one choose the top five? The first order of business is to define the terms: An overdrive pedal should have enough volume to distort a clean amplifier before adding gain from the pedal. It should also have enough gain to provide a dirty sound on its own, though anyth…

For many guitarists, the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the term “fuzz box” is the Big Muff Pi from Electro-Harmonix. With the new Deluxe Big Muff Pi, the company has added some cool additional features to its classic fuzz pedal.

This year, Boss has been releasing new stompboxes at a prodigious pace: two at Winter NAMM and three at Summer NAMM. All are reinventions of older Boss pedals. The DS-1X, released along with the OD-1X in January, is a revamped digital version of the DS-1. How does it compare to its predecessor? We tested them head to head as part of this review.

The Boss OD-1X OverDrive was one of two new stompboxes the company announced at NAMM 2014 (the DS-1X Distortion was the other). It features the company’s recently developed Multi-Dimensional Processing (MDP) technology and promises a superior playing experience to analog pedals. Does it deliver?

Since the days of the original Big Muff Pi, Electro-Harmonix has been building distortion pedals, and one of its latest entries is the EHX Tortion ($179). Way more than just a distortion effect, it also offers a range of overdrive sounds, pleasing clean tones, a boost channel, and you even get amp simulation via its direct out.

On the occasion of our recently published Palmer Mutterstolz distortion pedal review, your favorite website decided to revisit some of the German brand's Root Effects, and here we review Automat, an analog distortion/auto-wah that saw the light of day in February 2012.

Back in the day when fluorescent colors were in fashion, amps resembled fridges, all the songs on the radio had a guitar solo after the second chorus, and the Berlin Wall was still standing (Bingo!, the '80s), German brand Palmer made a name for itself among guitar players with products such as the very popular PI-03 speaker simulator in rack form…